Creature Feature

Soledad Navarro took this photo of the Juvenile winged pipe in the Clam area. It’s something you don’t see every day for sure. Here’s a bit of information on it.

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Juvenile winged pipe fish

Scientific Name:Halicampus macrorhynchus

Family: Syngnathidae

Subfamily: Syngnathinae

Category: Pipefishes

 

Also known as Ornate Pipefish and Whiskered Pipefish. Found singly or in pairs on reef flats and sea grass areas, among coral rubble and algae covered rocks. This Pipefish has flaps along the dorsal surface (back) of the fish and under the snout giving the fish an irregular outline. Skin flaps and wings are more exaggerated in juveniles. Varies in colour from place to place. They feed on tiny swimming invertebrates which they suck whole into their mouths. Length – 18cm, Depth – 3-25m, Widespread Indo-Pacific. Pipefish are like seahorses in that the male gives birth! The female deposits their eggs after fertilization into the males pouch to incubate the eggs for one month before giving birth.

 

Chinese New Year at El Galleon

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A big welcome to this wonderful group from China. Xiao Long Tan and Elaine started the Beijing Divers Club decades ago, maybe even the first dive club in China. Tan was Tech Asia’s point of contact with the National Museum of China’s Archaeological Dept, which kept tech Asia quite busy with over sixty technical courses when they trained their teams up to Trimix and Wreck Diver. Sam took them all to Florida for Cave Courses. Oliver (Jie Ao) was also one of that group. Last time we saw them was in 2014 when they flew Sam and Dave Ross up to Guilin to help with a cave project. Diving with us on this trip were: Ao Jie, Fei Lui, Xinyi Zhang, Xiao (Tan) Long, Yi (Elaine) Chen, and Sun Yanna

Diving with friends!

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Congratulations to Anna Barker for earning her PADI DPV certification. It’s always a very special time for us when the Barker family is here as they have been coming here since both girls we’re just Bubble-makers.  Pete, Jeff and Anna enjoyed the scooting around while Julie unfortunately had to be the supervisor on this trip.